Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will meet Oct 1. for their only scheduled vice presidential debate, which some expect will be a feisty exchange between the seasoned debaters.
The pair began wrangling before the debate was even scheduled. “I can’t wait to debate the guy—that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz said in his debut as the Democratic Party vice presidential candidate on Aug. 6.
Walz did not agree to a second meeting.
To assess the candidates’ debate skills, The Epoch Times watched hours of their previous debates and consulted experts on rhetoric and political communication. Generally, both are strong communicators with a solid command of information and sharp rhetorical skills. Both are willing to be cordial with opponents and moderators but are capable of ferocious attacks when challenged.
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Here’s how Vance and Walz line up in five key aspects of political debate.
Screenshots of posts made by vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance on X. Screenshot via The Epoch Times, X
Presentation
Vance and Walz have presented themselves with poise and confidence in debate settings. Each candidate has what it takes to be an effective speaker, Erin Christie, a professor of communication at Rutgers University, told the Epoch Times. Those include good eye contact, an appropriately assertive tone, and a measured temperament.
Both candidates often recount personal stories. Walz emphasizes his coaching and teaching experience, Vance refers to his difficult childhood and Appalachian origins.
That’s where the similarity ends, according to Thomas Hollihan, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “I think conversationally, Vance is much more likely to be bold and declarative,” Hollihan told The Epoch Times.
According to John Murphy, a professor specializing in presidential rhetoric at the University of Illinois, Walz has a more relaxed style using “ a regular-guy, dad-joke speaking style.”
Reasoning
Walz and Vance appear to easily recall information and display critical thinking in previous debates. Those are vital skills, according to Christie. “If someone comes across as really not being knowledgeable … that is something that’s very hard to overcome.”
Vance tends to present facts and statistics and then draw conclusions from them. Responding to a question about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) during a senatorial debate on Oct. 17, he said, “We have to appreciate that we’re talking about $2 trillion in additional federal spending that’s not going to reduce inflation. That’s adding more fuel to the fire.”
Later, he attacked his opponent with a barrage of numbers. “You voted to raise taxes $6.7 trillion 113 times, and just a few weeks ago in the Inflation Reduction Act itself, it raises taxes by $20 billion on working people in this state and in this country, and then it sends 87,000 IRS agents to go after them,” Vance said.
Walz is a storyteller, according to David Schultz, distinguished professor of political science at Hamline University. “Expect to see more of that narrative style in terms of what he’s going to do,” Schultz told The Epoch Times.
When arguing for early intervention in mental health care during a 2018 debate, Walz said, “There’s best practices. We saw it with the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act. We saw real results in that we started to bend the cost curve. And that was working in community partnership, peer-to-peer type things.”
In response to a question on family-owned versus corporate-owned farms in an Oct. 3, 2022, forum, Walz said, “We in Minnesota are proving that there’s room for everyone and that the market is going to drive where we go in those solutions. So we’re leading in this. We’re prospering. We’re creating vibrant rural communities, and we’re producing enough food to feed the world.”
Walz has sometimes been criticized for using generalities to paint an inaccurate picture of reality. In rebuttal to Walz’s family farm response, his opponent said Walz had used a false metric to show income growth among farmers because the high rate of inflation had negated their gains.
Vance is expected to argue his points based on facts and figures while Walz uses stories or examples to paint a picture.
Tough Questions
Debate moderators frequently pose questions that candidates would prefer not to answer. On such occasions, Walz has sometimes changed the subject by pointing to his achievements in other areas.
Asked, “What would we do to increase exports and make our farms more profitable?” during an August 2022 debate, Walz spoke about previous trade deals, completed infrastructure projects, and recent increases in farm production to conclude that Minnesota is a competitive global exporter. He did not mention future plans, the focus of the question.
Vance often handles difficult questions by making a cursory answer and quickly pivoting to a topic that presents a problem for his opponent.
When asked whether he thought some of the money provided by the IRA was well spent, Vance said, “Well, of course, some of the money is well spent.” He then pivoted immediately to talk about wasteful spending, federal borrowing, energy policy, and the price of groceries before landing a criticism of his opponent’s voting record.
Walz is expected to talk around tough questions by reciting achievements on another subject and Vance to provide a brief answer then pivot to attack.
Attack and Counterattack
Walz’s oratorical style has sharpened over his political career according to Schultz. In a 2018 forum, Walz called his opponent by first name and occasionally stated points of agreement between the two. Criticisms from both sides were delivered in calm tones.
Four years later Walz was a more aggressive communicator, Schultz said. “When he did the last debate for the governor’s race two years ago, it was very combative and partisan, and very personal.”
Replying to a question in an Oct. 28, 2022, debate about how to address the opioid crisis, Walz portrayed his debate opponent, a physician, as complicit with drug companies in creating the problem. “I want to be very clear about this. They didn’t do it alone. When [he] was issuing opioid prescriptions, he issued more than 94 percent of his peers,” Walz said.
Vance also is willing to engage in attack and counterattack. “I would characterize his style as aggressive,” Katherine Jellison, a professor specializing in contemporary politics at Ohio University, told The Epoch Times. “He came after [his Democrat opponent] with energy—and sometimes with anger.”
In a senatorial debate on Oct. 17, 2022, Vance launched a strident counterattack against his opponent, who had said Vance espoused a political idea that had prompted a racially motivated mass shooting earlier that year.
Vance interrupted the speaker, saying, “This is disgusting.” Vance said such statements by his opponent and the media had led to the harassment of his two biracial children. Vance’s wife, Usha, is of Indian descent. “We are sick of it,” Vance said, emotion rising in his voice.
Jeremy Lott, author of “The Warm Bucket Brigade,” a history of the vice presidency, predicts a contentious debate. “We’re going to watch two attack dogs try to outsnarl one another,” Lott told The Epoch Times.
Expect each candidate to level plenty of criticism against his opponent and to respond with passion when attacked.
Discipline
Several of our experts offered the opinion that it’s easier to lose a vice presidential debate than to win one. “The vice presidential candidates can hurt a ticket, but they seldom do that much to help a ticket,” Hollihan said. The best possible outcome may be to avoid a blunder.
That can be a problem even for experienced debaters according to Murphy. “Neither has ever participated in a nationally televised event like this, and they’re both human. I wouldn’t be surprised by nerves and mistakes,” he said.
For Vance that could come from the overuse of his forceful style and ability to summon emotion. “Showing obvious anger and disdain for his opponent is one of Vance’s major weaknesses as a debater,” Jellison said.
Christie agrees that being combative can backfire on a speaker. “If we start to see … any debater displaying too much aggression, that just turns people off,” she said. “And that, frankly, is something people don’t forget easily.”
Schultz theorized that Walz might try to goad Vance to overreact to an attack. “I’m wondering if Walz is going to try to set a trap, like Harris,” Schultz said, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris’s apparent attempts to provoke anger in former President Donald Trump in their Sept. 10 debate.
For Walz, the danger is that his tendency to rely on stories and examples could become confusing to listeners. “He can speak too quickly and get lost in various stories and ideas. He’ll need to be disciplined in the debate, when he’s dealing with time limits.”
“This is just a word salad with no substance,” Walz’s 2022 opponent remarked after Walz had delivered a rapid-fire response laden with examples and catch phrases like “golden opportunity” and “win-win-win.”
Vance is expected to do well if he avoids overreacting when provoked; Walz can do well if he avoids vague, rambling responses.
There was no consensus among experts on who would likely win the debate, but they did agree that the stakes are relatively low. “I expect that that contest is not going to matter as much as the contest between Harris and Trump did,” Hollihan said.
Walz and Vance square off in New York on Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. Eastern time.
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